Value For Money

Guest's review of Gap 360 - www.gap360.com

As a 19 year old, Australia is the most exciting place I have been to. The feeling of booking the trip with Gap360 off my own back was amazing. Everyhting seemed to be going perfectly. The flights had been booked, the visa had been accepted, and the trip was about to start. The ease of everything was perfect before I left the UK. I knew I had airport transfers to the Wske Up hostel in Sydney, but it wasnt until we arrived that we realised just how shambolic it actually was. It was a public holiday weekend the day we arrived, therefore the city was heaving, and the hostel was fully booked. I was given a bed in a fully booked room, there was no bed for me. After going back to the reception I was asked to sleep in a top single bed bunk, with my partner. Not ideal after a 24 hour flight.
It was then Monday when everyhting really went down hill. We went to the Dymocks building where gap360/ultimate oz was based, it was shut. No warning or contsct was made to us to inform us of where we had to meet the group. So we went back to the hostel, therefore day 1 of the job hunt was wasted. Later that day met a girl who happened to be staying in our dorm, she was also part of Ultimate Oz. She then told us that the welcome dinner was at 7pm and we had to meet in the reception. If we hadn't met this girl then we wouldnt have known where to go or what to do. As far as we were concerned we had been utterly left out.
The next day we had to meet the group in the Dymocks building once more at 9am-ish, when we arrived they were mid meating with the Ultimate Oz group. We then sat waiting around for 2 hours to then be given our itinerary and our Travelers at Work log in details.
The next day, Wednesday, we went to get our bank cards. We arrived at the building to find the entire Ultimate Oz group were already there. Were we told? No.
The next few days were spent job hunting on the TAW website while the ultimate oz group went sandboaring and swimming at Anna bay.
We then recieved no contact from anyone what so ever regarding what to do next.

Overall I found the whole experience with Gap360 utterly dissapointing, and a complete waste of money. I understand we had to do it off our own backs but at the cost of £519 PER PERSON, I would have thought it would have been a little better than it was.

I would not recommend Gap360 or Ultimate Oz to anyone who is looking at travelling and working, as they seem to only care about having fun and partying- which you could do back at home.

I hope others find this enlightening BEFORE paying the rediculous amounts of money for the MINIMAL contact and overall dissapointing service.

My advice would be to do it entirely off your own back, be brave, and you will save money.

Value For Money

Gap360Ltd's Comment

Written on: 16/10/2012

Thanks for this feedback. We’d like to reply to your comments.

Being a public holiday should not have affected your programme as the only event scheduled was the welcome dinner, which you did receive. We are sorry that the hostel was fully booked but your place should have been reserved. We are checking on what happened here and are looking into this.

We have a 24-hour support line, and this number is in your pre-departure information. It is a pity that you did not call us, as if you had alerted us to this problem we could have sorted it out for you on the spot.

Meeting instructions for the welcome dinner were in your pre-departure information so you should have known where and when to meet, that’s how the other girl you met knew this.

The office was closed on the bank holiday, but the orientation meeting was scheduled for the Tuesday, there were no activities planned for Monday as all businesses were closed for the holiday so it should not have affected you..

The people on the Absolute Oz programme have a different schedule and paid £599 which includes much more, including sandboarding, swimming and lots of excursions. You paid £299 for the Work Australia package, plus £220 for the working holiday visa being processed on your behalf so you were on a very different programme.

We are sorry that you had to wait to collect your bank details and other information on the Tuesday. I have taken up your comments with the Sydney office and will email you on this point. It is important to note that the Sydney office will provide help and jobs support for 12 months. If at any point you feel that you are not receiving this service please email us here in the UK and we will follow up for you.

Please let us know if you are not receiving any of these services. Again, we are sorry that you feel that this is not good value, but once you have taken advantage of the 12 months of job offers and received the other services we hope you’ll change your mind.

We will refund you the first night’s accommodation and will be in touch by email to arrange this.